HBO Renews THE NEWSROOM and TRUE BLOOD

One show just aired the second episode of its freshman season while the other is a little further ahead on its fifth, but today HBO treated them as equals by announcing The Newsroom and True Blood will each get another season.

The Aaron Sorkin scripted cable news drama reeled in 2.1 million total viewers, which is just shy of the numbers for the series premiere of Game of Thrones, and that was enough to impress the cable network. On the content side of things, the second episode which just aired last night was a vast improvement on the already promising pilot, especially with series regular Alison Pill making a huge stride in one of the episodes’ more prominent plot points, and further development on the relationship between Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer. Overall, the series felt like it had found more solid footing after delivering a lot of what people already expected from Sorkin anyway. Either way, it’s good to hear The Newsroom will at least last one more season longer than Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a show that would’ve done much better on HBO and with better comedic sketch writing.

Details on the renewal of True Blood after the jump.

It’s been five seasons of bloody, erotic vampire, werewolf and fairy business on True Blood, but HBO is still thirsty for more. TV Line says the fantasy drama will get at least one more season, but remember, that Alan Ballwill not be returning as showrunner, and executive producer Mark Hudis will be replacing him. I know some fans have grown leery of the series, but HBO seems to think that enough are still enjoying the ride to at least get one more season out of them. Only time will tell where the new season will take us with plenty of episodes left in the fifth season. The question is how many of the series regulars will survive to return for another season?